


Just Enough to Get By

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Pining, Sort Of, bond, dragon!Bucky, mage!Clint, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22422937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: One of these days, Clint is going to have his life figured out.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 57
Kudos: 209





	Just Enough to Get By

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Argentee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argentee/gifts).



> For Argentee, who has waited so very, very patiently for some mutual pining winterhawk.
> 
> Now beta read by the always amazing Ro!!

Clint scrubbed a hand over his face, dragged his fingers through his hair, and immediately grimaced when he caught sight of his reflection in the polished surface of the elevator doors. His hair was, as ever, a  _ wreck _ . 

The woman and her teenage daughter crowded into the elevator with him looked away as soon as Clint caught them staring at him.

It made him want to laugh. Or something.

He couldn’t have looked more out of place if he had  _ tried _ . His jeans were threadbare, the hems a ragged mess and a hole over his left knee. His hoodie… Hell, his hoodie had seen better decades, but it was the soft one, the all-black one that zipped up the front that Clint had had since he was eighteen, and it was  _ soft _ . Even his shoes were a mess - battered purple Chucks that someone cooler than him would probably make work for them, but that Clint wore and knew made him anything but cool.

The mother and daughter, dressed in their fashionable clothes and carrying their fashionable bags, sporting their fashionable haircuts and shifting their feet in their fashionable boots…  _ they _ belonged here. 

Here, being not just the shiny gold box of the elevator but the luxury apartment building just off Central Park, and Clint?

Clint barely made it past the front desk, even though his name was down as a guest.

The elevator stopped on the seventh floor, and Toby, the operator who Clint seemed to be blessed with no matter the time or the day, nodded at him.

“Have a good evening, Mr. Barton,” Toby said as the doors opened. As if Clint were important, or deserving or - hell - worth noticing.

Clint nodded back.

“You too, Toby. Thanks.”

Clint stepped out of the elevator and waited for the doors to close behind him before he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

He squared his shoulders, uselessly combed through his hair again, and marched his ass off down the empty, immaculate hallway until he reached the door at the end: 7B. 7A, at the other end of the hall, was the residence of a very flirty elderly couple, and Clint had made the mistake of knocking on their door once, months ago, when he’d been a little closer to drunk than sober, and he’d been invited in and fussed over and given hot chocolate and cookies until he was rescued. 

The memory made him smile a little, as ridiculous as it was - as ridiculous as  _ he _ was. 

He was still smiling when he knocked on the door to 7B. 

Clint’s smile dropped away to an unflattering, open-mouthed stare when the door opened to reveal an entirely naked man standing just inside.

Clint looked over his shoulder, frantic and red-faced, but the elevator was still closed, as was the door to 7A.

Even so-

He turned back and shoved at the firm, naked chest in front of him until Clint was in the apartment and could close the door.

“Christ, Buck, you can’t just open the door  _ naked _ \- what if someone saw you?”

Bucky was the one smiling now, standing there naked and confident and damn near smirking at Clint and his too-warm cheeks. His quicksilver eyes flashed, otherworldly and amused.

“Someone did see me. Exactly as I’d planned.”

It made Clint roll his eyes - Bucky’s confidence, his casual boldness and forthrightness.  _ I’ve lost too much time to bother with subtlety _ , Bucky had once told Clint.

“Yeah, well, your master plan worked. There a step two involved, or did you just want to shock my delicate sensibilities?”

Bucky huffed a laugh and stepped closer to Clint, close enough to reach out and touch him, to tease the zipper of his hoodie down.

“I’d hardly describe you as delicate, Clinton Francis Barton.”

There was a shiver in the air, a faint crackle of ozone as Bucky used his full name, as Bucky  _ called _ him.

They’d talked about that. Clint had complained, on no fewer than eight occasions, about Bucky doing that to him.

Bucky tugged the zipper free, smoothed the two sides of the hoodie over Clint’s shoulders, and let it fall to the floor behind him. 

He still had a shirt on under, just as soft and faded as the hoodie, just as out of place in this penthouse on Central Park as anything else on Clint’s body, as Clint himself. 

Even so, even fully dressed, he felt more exposed and more vulnerable than if he was standing there just as naked as Bucky.

But then, that had everything to do with Bucky, with his eyes and his very  _ existence _ , and barely anything to do with Clint at all.

Bucky was still staring, still too close, his fingers now teasing the hem of Clint’s t-shirt as he assessed Clint and, probably, his level of freak-out today.

“Did you want me to tell you step two or surprise you with it?” Bucky asked, voice a rumbled  _ purr _ that made Clint want to melt into him.

Clint licked his lips, totally at a loss for how to respond because- because  _ Bucky _ .

Bucky had always had this effect on him, from the moment they met to now, fifteen months, eight days and twelve hours - not that Clint was counting - later. 

“Clint, touch me.” It was somewhere between an invitation and a command. Clint could refuse - he could  _ always _ refuse. No matter the electric crackle between them, the pull Clint felt to wrap himself around Bucky, especially when Bucky  _ called _ him - Clint could step away, he could walk away. He even had, a few times. A few awful, terrible times.

Slowly, as if he would spook himself if he moved too fast, Clint lifted his right hand and let his fingers touch Bucky, let himself trace the sharp line of Bucky’s collarbones. 

Bucky sucked in a breath, his eyes growing darker, more silver than blue now, and his cheeks were flushed. His skin was warm, practically  _ burning, _ and so very smooth beneath Clint’s fingers.

Until Clint reached the scales, anyway.

They were rough, nothing like Clint would have ever expected. Not like snakeskin, not like a fish or- Well, not like  _ anything _ . Thick and touch and layered, gold and black and silver, stretching from just above his heart to cover his shoulder and arm completely, down to his hand and his sure, talented fingers. The nails were black and so very shiny, as if they were highly polished - hell, Clint had never asked, but he imagined they  _ were _ . Had daydreamed more than once of Bucky sitting on his ridiculously plush couch, in front of his fireplace, surrounded by his books and paintings and records, polishing his black nails, buffing them over and over and over again, until they shone enough to be blinding. 

The rest of Bucky’s body was human, startlingly so, and Clint had never been able to work it out, which part of Bucky felt more unnatural - the human form he took or the part of his true dragon form that had been cursed to always be visible. 

Normal people would probably - definitely - think of Bucky’s dragon arm, of that galaxy-kaleidoscope of scales and shiny black nails, as the unnatural part of him. But Clint? Clint wasn’t normal - never had been and never would be.

He didn’t have a problem with the human parts of Bucky - on the contrary, he was very appreciative - and he took his time now to lift his other arm, to refresh his memory of Bucky’s skin, the soft gasp he made when his nipples were pinched, the way he damn near squirmed when Clint smoothed a calloused palm over the curve of his belly.

But, well, Clint was drawn to the dragon in Bucky,  _ of _ Bucky, and they both knew that. Had, from their very first meeting.

After all, Clint had been tasked with killing the dragon, had used a powerful summoning spell to call Bucky to him and trap him in the cast-iron Ladies Pavilion in the Park. It had served as a prison, the iron cutting through the magic that allowed Bucky to exist at all, and he’d been trapped in place and form - changed to a human and left snarling threats at Clint between the ornate, curving iron archways.

And, well, Clint’s orders were simple: he was a mage, and he went where he was told and he did what he was told. And he’d been told to find the silver dragon that had commandeered Central Park, and he’d been told to kill it. 

But standing there, scant feet separating them, the weight of Clint’s iron-tipped arrows heavy but nothing compared to the cold gaze of the man with a dragon arm, Clint had realized that  _ nothing _ was simple. 

Clint wasn’t a  _ good _ mage - had never studied as much as he should, had never had the kind of easy access to his gift that Natasha had - but that wasn’t to say he was entirely lacking. He could  _ feel _ the dragon-man, could read the pain and hunger in his soul, and it was obvious, so blindingly obvious, that the creature Clint had trapped meant no harm to anyone innocent. Just as obvious that the creature  _ had _ hurt people - innocent and awful alike - and that each death he had caused, each murder he had been ordered to commit, each act of revenge he had sought, had left him hollow and aching. 

So Clint did the thing he did all too often these days, the thing where he ignored his orders and allowed his prey to escape.

But the creature - he didn’t immediately fly off - didn’t attack Clint, either. Instead, he reached for Clint’s jaw with his rough, scaly left hand and curved his shiny black nails into Clint’s cheek in a way that should have felt threatening but instead felt… felt entirely too comforting.

_ What shall I call you? _ the creature had asked, and Clint had answered, immediately, thoughtlessly - giving the creature his full name, his true name.

_ Clinton Francis Barton _ , the creature repeated, rolling the syllables on his tongue, eyes bright as the fullest moon.  _ You are mine now, as I am yours _ .

And  _ then _ he’d left, leaping into the air and becoming a full dragon in the space of a single, lost breath.

It had taken months - hellish months of Clint realizing everything he’d thought was real and true and  _ right _ was a lie - before Clint found him again. 

Or, rather, until  _ he _ found Clint.

Injured, sure he was near death, Clint had at least been able to hold onto the satisfaction that Natasha was safe, that Steve and Sam and Tony and Wanda and Bruce, and even fucking Pietro, were alive, and Pierce and Rumlow and Rollins were dead - had bit the bullet before Clint.

And then, there he was, cradling Clint’s near-lifeless body, ignoring the blood, ignoring the rain soaking them both, and he cradled Clint’s jaw with his dragon hand and forced Clint to meet his gaze.

_ Touch me, Clinton Francis Barton.  _

He hadn’t been able to, actually, had managed to lift his right hand all of an inch before he groaned in pain and gasped a plea for an  _ end _ to it. 

But then his hand was being lifted, held by strong, scalding fingers and pressed to the creature’s lips, dragged down to press against the burning skin above his heart.

_ You are mine _ , the creature reminded Clint, and he felt it, then - not that fleeting tickle of magic between them when the creature spoke his name, but the  _ creature _ \- his life, his  _ soul _ . 

He gave it to Clint, ushered all of that heat and magic and power towards Clint until Clint felt full, felt radiant and bursting. 

He saved Clint - he gave Clint part of himself to heal Clint, and if they hadn’t been tied together before, they sure as hell were now. 

_ Don’t even know your name _ , Clint had mumbled, still dazzled by the way his skin felt stretched too tight and his lips tingled with electricity. 

_ James Buchanan Barnes _ .

Now, of course, a year later, Clint isn’t in danger of dying, and when Bucky tells Clint to touch him, it isn’t because of anything more than desire, more than Bucky  _ wanting _ it. 

And Clint wanted it too. Wanted to push Bucky down onto that ridiculously plush couch and touch every inch of him. 

Clint licked his lips, tried to reach for some measure of control, some attempt at being cool and controlled. 

Bucky used his grip on Clint’s shirt to pull him close, until the heat of Bucky was searing through Clint’s clothing and Bucky’s lips moved against his own.

“You are mine,” Bucky reminded him, lips smooth and so very, very warm against Clint’s. “And I am yours.”

It felt too big, it always did, when Bucky brought out that little mantra, when Bucky called Clint, when the weight of Bucky’s true name sank between them because Clint couldn’t, wouldn’t, say it. 

Someday, maybe, he would say it. Would earn it. 

But today wasn’t that day. 

Today, Clint navigated towards that couch, pushed Bucky down and crawled atop him and sank into all of his heat, all of his power. He let himself be swallowed whole, and, as always, it felt like finally coming up for air. 

-o-

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So I uh... actually set out to write something soft and fluffy? But my brain said nope, fuck you? Sorry about that.
> 
> Read A/N:
> 
> I have surgery tomorrow, and will be recovering and dealing with pain etc for at least 1-2 weeks before I can even think of writing more. So, there will be radio silence for 1-2 weeks.  
> I'm on twitter @angryashleigh and will try to, you know, update about me being alive and such. 
> 
> BUT: more writing when I return!!!!


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